There is only one Lord and that is Jesus Christ and there is only one real church and that is the Church of Jesus Christ. At this point you’re all wondering where I’m going with this and what I’m going to say next?

Every since I started reading Christian blogs and websites three year ago, I have been concerned and distressed about how much time and energy well meaning Christians spend tearing down other sovereign ministries and churches.

I can understand one being convinced about their own church and movement. Yes, there are issues and practices in the church that need to be addressed from time to time. By why is it always necessary to tear down, cast aspersions, innuendoes, gossip about, and violently separate from, and totally demonize other ministries.

Why can’t issues be civilly addressed among fellow brothers and sisters?  Christians are exposing more dirty laundry on the world-wide web than they are bearing positive testimonies of the Lord Jesus Christ. Millions of unbelievers come across this junk on the Net everyday—what a shame and what a lost opportunity!

Here’s today’s devotional from Charisma Online that got me started thinking about this. Written by Graham Kendrick who has written some of my all time favorite worship songs:

Divisions in Church

Today’s message is from Graham Kendrick.

Satan’s power is vested in division. His initial power base came because he succeeded in dividing creature from Creator through sin. Within a generation, motivated by jealousy, brother had murdered brother. Before long, nation was slaughtering nation. In the crucifixion of Jesus every dividing wall of hostility was broken down. It remains for us to step over the rubble, embrace one another and celebrate what He has achieved.

Interestingly, of all the songs in the Book of Revelation, not one is a solo. The twenty-four elders sing and cast down their crowns before His feet, the united voices of countless angels resound, every living creature in heaven and earth and under the earth and all that is in them are joined in one song. In every case multitudes of peoples or angels unite in the same song with absolute unity, with one voice.

Though we can’t imagine the sounds of heaven, we can begin here on earth to offer worship in cooperation with other believers because God is building believers together into a spiritual house of worship. (See 1 Peter 2:5.) We do not wait for heaven. We take hold of heaven’s kingdom now and bring it into the earth. We do not sit waiting for perfected Christians to show up with whom to be united. Rather we seek those whose eyes are also fixed adoringly upon Jesus, and we agree to march together in celebration that in Him every dividing wall has been broken down. And as we do, we find ourselves moving like an army, shoulder to shoulder, our feet and hearts in step with one another and with heaven’s battalions.

TODAY’S PRAYER:

Lord, break the divisions that exist between Christians in my city. Let us praise You with one mighty voice in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

J. Lee Grady recalls an interesting event from the past this week in his Fire in My  Bones article for March 7, 2008.

Apparently in 1999, Kenneth Hagin Sr. called many of the leaders of the prosperity movement’ together to read some of them the riot act. He warned them that some were distorting his teachings but more importantly distorting the Bible. He was hoping to bring correction to the movement he had founded before he passed on.

Here are some of the points he was addressing that was also covered in his last book-  The Midas Touch:

1. Financial prosperity is not a sign of God’s blessing. Hagin wrote: “If wealth alone were a sign of spirituality, then drug traffickers and crime bosses would be spiritual giants. Material wealth can be connected to the blessings of God or it can be totally disconnected from the blessings of God.”

2. People should never give in order to get. Hagin was critical of those who “try to make the offering plate some kind of heavenly vending machine.” He denounced those who link giving to getting, especially those who give cars to get new cars or who give suits to get new suits. He wrote: “There is no spiritual formula to sow a Ford and reap a Mercedes.”

3. It is not biblical to “name your seed” in an offering. Hagin was horrified by this practice, which was popularized in faith conferences during the 1980s. Faith preachers sometimes tell donors that when they give in an offering they should claim a specific benefit to get a blessing in return. Hagin rejected this idea and said that focusing on what you are going to receive “corrupts the very attitude of our giving nature.”

4. The “hundredfold return” is not a biblical concept. Hagin did the math and figured out that if this bizarre notion were true, “we would have Christians walking around with not billions or trillions of dollars, but quadrillions of dollars!” He rejected the popular teaching that a believer should claim a specific monetary payback rate.

5. Preachers who claim to have a “debt-breaking” anointing should not be trusted. Hagin was perplexed by ministers who promise “supernatural debt cancellation” to those who give in certain offerings. He wrote in The Midas Touch: “There is not one bit of Scripture I know about that validates such a practice. I’m afraid it is simply a scheme to raise money for the preacher, and ultimately it can turn out to be dangerous and destructive for all involved.”

The movement started out with a sound observation made by Hagin that “God was not glorified by poverty and that preachers do not have to be poor.”  However, some of the excesses and greed within the movement bothered even ‘Dad Hagin’ before he died in 2003. Unfortunately his warning went largely unheeded.           

2007 was one of those years which will live in infamy in the American Christian community. I will not dredge up and detail all the negative stuff that happened in the American Church. The year began with all of us looking and hoping for revival but soon it became obvious that the Lord had different plans for year 2007. 

Everything and everyone in the church that could be shaken was (well maybe not everything yet). Major leaders were exposed, many were brought down, and many obviously should have been. Major ministries brought under investigation. Ministers that should have probably resigned didn’t. The Church was embarrassed in a major way or at least should have been.

Response: Let truth reign. The church should never be afraid of the truth but welcome it. It should never hide from the truth but delight in it. Sometimes it was very hard to delight in some of the truth that was exposed about us in 2007.  However, the Gospel is still true and our Lord is still “the Truth, the way, and the life.”

Praise the Lord even for the inconvenient and embarrassing truths that rained upon the American church in 2007.

I found this list of predictions for the new year over at Revival Journal. This is the best ‘prophetic’ look at 2008 that I have seen yet:

10 Predictions for 2008

1. The Bible will still have all the answers.
2. Prayer will still work.
3. The Holy Spirit will still move.
4. God will still inhabit the praises of His people.
5. There will still be God-anointed preaching.
6. There will still be singing of praise to God.
7. God will still pour out blessings upon His people.
8. There will still be room at the Cross
9. Jesus will still love you.
10. Jesus will still save the lost.

The are so many mega churches in America that remind me of several of the corporations that I have worked for over the years. The Pastor is the CEO and uses the corporate jet and lives in the executive neighborhood with the proverbial house on the hill designed for the obligatory parties and entertainment that goes along with position and power. I know this sounds harsh but it is all too prevalent in some Christian circles.

Here is a fine article by J. Lee Grady (‘Fire In My Bones’-Charisma Mag. @ 08-17-07) that points out the struggles between this model and the call for relational ministry. Grady observes:

“Perhaps we have allowed the sophisticated culture of the business world to invade Gods house. After all, many of our churches have evolved into mega-corporations with our own CEOs, controllers, administrators, tax codes, dress codes, office hours and private jets and even bodyguards! In such a stuffy atmosphere, genuine love can turn lukewarm.”

Comments: Come Holy Spirit and shake all of the American churches and bring your true revival, and bring your direction and order to your church in America. In Jesus name, Amen.

The latest Fire In My Bones article ( Fri. July 27, 2007) from J. Lee Grady is a must read: “The Deadly Virus of Celebrity Christianity”:

Paul and Barnabas and later Silas use to walk from town to town and were known to even work occasionally to support themselves. Jail was more often than not their reward for preaching in their ‘marketplace’ conferences. Now in 21th century USA, those who consider themselves ‘more than Apostles’ demand worship, 5 star hotels, luxury cars to drive, and manicurists?

That the Charismatic/Pentecostal community puts up with such as these is more than I can bear. It is almost enough to make me wish that I was a cessassionist. Where are all the humble servants of the Lord? How long will the Lord suffer such idiocy in his name? I believe that judgment is on the way for such as these. Hear me now! Along with revival comes judgment for all unfaithful servants.

J. Lee Grady ends his article with the following:

New Testament Christianity is humble, selfless and authentic. And those who carry the truth don’t preach for selfish gain or to meet an emotional need for attention. May God help us root out the false apostles and false teachers who are making the American church sick with their man-centered, money-focused heresies.

May the Lord bring revival to this land and save his church from all the egotistical man-centered so-called ministers. Lord, let all the humble servants that you have prepared to finally rise to the top and have their day in the sun.

J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma Magazine has posted some timely and essential thoughts on church discipline in a recent article: Fire In My Bonesclick on archives: 2-02-07- Cowardice, Compromise and the Sin of Eli. He closes with the following call for action:

The bottom line: Godly leaders draw lines and enforce moral standards–without becoming self-righteous and unkind. Ungodly leaders, on the other hand, may appear to be nice and compassionate, but they actually are unfaithful to God if they refuse to require their spiritual sons and daughters to follow Biblical standards of behavior.

We are in a moment of serious leadership crisis in the American church, and part of our problem is the sin of Eli. I am making an appeal: will the fathers and mothers of the church please do their job? We need your rebuke and your rod of correction.

Please go to those who are exploiting God’s people financially and make them stop. Please confront those who are robbing the church for personal gain. Please go to those who are abusing others, sexually or in any other way, remove them from leadership and get them healed.

Please don’t let the Hophnis and Phinehases of today have airtime on Christian TV. Please don’t showcase them in your conferences. Please stop looking the other way when you hear about their blunders. Please restore discipline to the body of Christ.

Response: I believe that Jesus is beginning to purify his church. Leaders with secret sins are about to be exposed. Those who openly abuse their positions are about to be rejected. Now is the time for leaders to get their life in order before the cameras and the lights are turned on. The Haggard affair is just the beginning. True Revival always seems to begin with true repentance and a cleansing of the Temple. New leaders will soon rise up and old leaders will be transformed or they will fall or fade away. I believe that those leaders who claim to seek Revival but delay in responding to the Spirit and continue to do their own thing will not be left standing when the fullness of a mighty rushing wind blows across the land.